


tread softly (because you tread on my dreams)

by helenblqckthorn



Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: Gay Panic, Henry Pov, M/M, Making Out, Mutual Pining, henrys pov of the red room scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 14:48:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19231291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helenblqckthorn/pseuds/helenblqckthorn
Summary: His stomach drops though when he realises he’s still hard. Shit. Think of Gran, think of very unattractive old lady wrinkles, think of England—Henry's point of view of the Red Room scene (or: the Hamilton portrait scene)





	tread softly (because you tread on my dreams)

**Author's Note:**

> legit wrote this in an hour sitting really late at night so it's unedited and unbetad and probably shit but i ADORE ALEX AND HENRY so had to get this out
> 
> disclaimer some of the dialogue is NOT MINE it's from the book only a little bit tho
> 
> title from Yeats's 'Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven.'

_Oh my god I’m going to die I’m going to die I’m going to die_ , Henry panics, being dragged into a room by his tie one handedly by Alex Claremont-Diaz.

The sheer determination it had taken Shaan to make him attend the state dinner had been impressive. Henry had considered locking himself in his room at Kensington palace, which to him, was a reasonable idea, considering the last time he’d come face-to-face with the youngest member of the First Family, he’d drunkenly kissed him, panicked, and had run away.

When he says, “run away”, he means “sprint back to the party, quite literally tear Pez away from whichever girl he was politely seducing, grab Shaan and the rest of his team that had travelled with them, and force them to run back to the car and book a plane back to England once they’d all strapped in.”

Naturally, they had wanted an explanation, Pez a bit more forcefully than the others, and Henry had been forced to relive his total embarrassment of the evening in bullet point detail, flashbacks of what Alex’s face in his hands, his lips, his breath against Henry’s skin felt like, repeating on him.

Was Henry overreacting? In his mind, absolutely not. In fact, he felt as if he were under-reacting, and the more drastic reaction would be to leave the palace and live out the rest of his life as a hermit in the Isle of Wight, all because he kissed the pretty boy he had been deeply crushing on for an embarrassing amount of years.

Now that he thought about it, the hermit option seemed slightly more appealing than it had before.

“I’m such an idiot,” Henry moaned, knocking his head against the head rest in front of him. “A pillock. A moron. A Buffon.”

“Henry, mate.” Pez grabbed his shoulders and shook him, still moderately drunk. “You are _overreacting_.”

“I am _not_ ,” Henry insisted, shaking Pez back. “This is the worst thing I have ever done in my life. I can not believe that in a fit of drunken misery, I would do such a thing.”

“Did you actually check to see what his reaction was?” Pez asked. “At all?”

Henry paused. “Well. No. But–”

“Are you _joking_.”

“I know he doesn’t like me back! He kissed Nora at the countdown!”

“HE KISSED YOU RIGHT AFTERWARDS YOU ABSOLUTE WEAPON.”

“Children. I work with children,” Shaan had muttered, covering his eyes with one hand.

Henry and Pez argued all the way to the plane, the poor pilot having been woken in the dead of the morning as a result of Henry’s idiotic mistake. Shaan looked weary as he settled into one of the reclining chairs, and Henry prepared himself for a night of overthinking and no sleep.

“Anyways,” Henry said loudly over Pez’s current rant, which involved the topic of missing time that could have been spent with June Claremont-Diaz, which normally Henry would have been sympathetic to, being half in love with a Claremont-Diaz himself, but not this time. “I am never setting foot in the White House again and never seeing the First Family ever again upon pain of death.”

“We’re meeting them in two weeks for the state dinner that we signed up for,” Shaan deadpanned.

“WHAT.” Henry practically shrieked.

“Can I come along?” Pez asked hopefully.

So that’s how they ended up on their way back to the White House, excluding Pez, who was incredibly disappointed to miss the occasion. When Henry pointed out that he wasn’t a world leader, and therefore wouldn’t have been invited anyways, he very nearly was pummelled by six foot of Okonjo.

Shaan had to forcibly restrain him from biting his nails and was the one who had to drag Henry from his recluse in the bedroom. Sometimes Henry really forgot how much Shaan did for him, except in this occasion it was supremely unhelpful to his cause of becoming a gay mountain hermit.

“It’ll be fine,” Shaan had insisted. “Alex wouldn’t say anything in front of all the presidents and prime ministers there.”

“Okay,” Henry had agreed, rather breathless from pacing. “Okay, you’re right. There’s nothing to worry about. I’ll just pretend it never happened.”

Of course, that all went to shit as soon as he walked into the dining room and saw Alex, his curls—which Henry knew were as soft as they looked—dashingly rumpled, his suit outlining the hard angles of his body, his dark eyes literally fucking twinkling as he spoke to his sister, his mouth an appealing shape which Henry had the intense urge to kiss again.

Fuck.

And then Alex spotted him. His eyes immediately zeroed in on Henry—who ignored his fight or flight senses that were kicking in—and continued to stare at him until he reached Alex, forced to make formal greetings. Henry could not for the life of him interpret Alex’s intense expression, and tried to skip past him, avoiding whatever wrath is directed his way.

But then Zahra hissed at him to remember the photos—right, the photos, how could he have forgotten the wonderful photos which force him to stand close proximity to Alex for very much longer than Henry is comfortable with.

“Hey,” Alex said, with his charming paparazzi smile. Christ, Alex has no idea of how much Henry is attracted to him, and he plans to keep it that way. “Cool to see you’re not dead or anything.”

Henry can’t remember what he said, but it was probably something really clever like “Um,” or “Yeah.” Really, he’s quite surprised that he’s come this far in life.

Alex said something about talking, which sends a bucket of ice-cold water down Henry’s spine and thank god Zahra splits them up because he’s not sure what he would have said or done. Probably something stupid.

He’s always managed to keep himself so contained and reserved around boys but the _one_ time he decides to kiss an insanely pretty one, it all goes to hell. Typical of his luck.

The rest of the dinner passed very awkwardly. Henry tried to block out Alex’s presence entirely, which does _not_ work because every time he so much as glances over at him, he finds himself on the receiving end of Alex’s intent glare and has to duck his head and watch his food to pretend the moment of eye contact didn’t happen. He can’t even concentrate on the prime minister next to him, he’s that distracted.

But then the blessing that is Nora Holleran wafts over to him and tells him that she simply must show him the ornamental chocolates, and Henry thinks, why the hell not, anything to get Alex off my mind. Except the blessing turns out to be a condemnation, because who else other than the First Son pops up in between them and grabs Henry’s tie, giving Nora a winning smile and a terrible excuse as he drags him away.

Surely, Henry thinks, as he’s being carted away, God must have it out for him or something. Wasn’t enough being gay in the Royal Family—no, we’ll have to give Henry terrible luck as well.

“Do you mind?” He manages to say, having no idea where Alex is headed, except that he’s a little bit afraid of the look of determination on his face.

“Shut your face,” Alex tells him informatively, and Henry thinks listlessly, ‘why does that turn me on,’ and ‘this is where I die.’

His suspicions about his death are heightened when it is discussed between the secret service agent that greets them at the doors of a room that leads off of the main dining room, and he has just enough incredulity left to demand: “What in God’s earth are you doing?”

“Shut _up_ , shut all the way up, oh my God,” Alex snaps, and Henry truly thinks he’s about to be decked in the face when Alex shoves him against a wall and furiously kissed him and _oh my God_.

His knees are just about holding him up as his mind goes completely blank and it’s— _oh_ , it’s so much better than last time. And he manages to hurdle his shock and respond to the natural instinct of kissing back and Christ his lips are soft and his hands and his mouth and—

“Wait,” Henry breaks away with monumental strength, gaining some sense of sentience back. God, Alex’s hair is mussed and he’s staring at him with a _what the fuck_ expression on his face and his lips are kiss-swollen and _agh_. “Should we—”

“What?” Alex demands, and Henry can feel his frustration radiating off of him in waves.

“I mean, er, should we, I dunno, slow down?” He’s listening to the rational side of his brain, the one that’s screaming that it is a very very very bad idea to be making out with the FSOTUS in the room next to more than thirty state officials. God, he’s making a fool of himself, wincing as each stupid word tumbled out of his mouth. “Go for dinner first, or—”

“We just had dinner.” Alex stares at him like he’s going to burn a hole through his skull and into the wall with the power of his eyes alone.

“Right—I meant—I just thought—”

“Stop thinking.”

And _Christ_ does that send a wave of heat down his body. He gives into the non-rational side. “Yes. Gladly.”

In an abrupt move, Alex pushes an expensive looking candelabra onto the floor and moves Henry so that he’s sitting on the table, and it’s already so hot and intense that he sections Alex in between his legs automatically, valiantly ignoring being up against Alexander Hamilton’s portrait.

And Alex starts kissing him again, and Henry has no fucking thoughts in his head, there’s only Alex and the way he’s pressing up against Henry’s body and the way he catches his bottom lip in his teeth, the arousal spreading through Henry’s body rapidly and his legs hooking Alex’s back so that he’s right up against Henry’s body and he _moves_ and they both groan into each other’s mouths and it’s utterly euphoric. Henry tosses his head back in pleasure and Alex is immediately kissing and scraping his teeth against his neck with a ferocity that painfully hardens him, making him gasp and roll up against Alex.

 _I want this_ , he thinks, the only thought going through his head. _I can have this. I can have Alex._

It’s getting intense now, they’re both moving against each other furiously, two souls that are bumbling their way along in finding each other and Henry’s eyes almost roll back into his head with sheer pleasure of Alex’s hand high, gripping his thigh and his moans into his mouth—

“Times up!” The secret service agent calls through the door, and they tear away from each other’s mouths, gasping and breathless from the pure intensity of what’s just happened. Henry moves slightly, automatically, accidentally into Alex, and Alex cusses savagely, Henry biting back a groan at the friction.

He stares up at the ceiling, panting. “I’m going to die.”

“I’m going to kill you,” Alex replies.

“Yes,” Henry says, drinking in the image of his flushed face, rumpled clothing, mussed curls. “You are.”

Alex steps back, and Henry almost whines at the loss, holding himself back from launching onto Alex again. He tells him that there are people going to come in, but all Henry can take in is the shakiness of his legs and Alex’s absentmindedness, mind clearly on other things.

“Fuck, you look—fuck,” Alex bites out, trying to straighten Henry’s hair, but he couldn’t find anything to care less about.

His stomach drops though when he realises he’s still hard. Shit. Think of Gran, think of very unattractive old lady wrinkles, think of England—

Henry’s doesn’t even realise he’s singing God Save the Queen until Alex points it out incredulously, and he has to wave to the problem of his crotch to get the message across to him.

But then, Alex is telling him: “You’re gonna be, like, five hundred feet away from me for the rest of the night, or else I am going to do something that I will deeply regret in front of a lot of very important people.”

Henry blinks, suddenly very hot. “All right.”

And Alex is wrapping his hand around his tie again, and he’s literally centimetres away from his lips and _God_ Henry is far too attracted to this man, and he says: “And then you are going to come to the East Bedroom on the second floor at eleven o’clock tonight, and I am going to do very bad things to you, and if you fucking ghost me again, I’m going to get you put on a fucking no-fly list. Got it?”

Henry makes some sort of sound. He’s not sure what it is. He only knows it conveys the spike of heated arousal that just shot down to his stomach, and he tried to speak, but it comes out in a wheeze. “Perfectly.”

Which is how Henry ends up outside the bedroom to the First Son of the United States of America, jacket tossed aside, and lips still tingling from the memory of his.

**Author's Note:**

> leave comments and kudos they fuel me!!
> 
> hmu on @wylvns on tumblr xx


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